Report on the involvement of mobile phones in road crashes

By: Dave Lamble & Laurence Hartley

Date: Monday, 22. September 2008

Dave Lamble & Laurence Hartley can be reached at:
Institute for Research in Safety and Transport
School of Psychology
Murdoch University
Australia

Summary

There is little doubt that using a mobile phone while driving can distract the driver from the task of driving safely. This potential problem will have an increasing impact on road safety as more mobile communications devices appear in vehicles in the traffic flow.

In this report the term mobile phone is used to denote all types of portable communications devices that may be found in a vehicle.

A major concern is that a distracted driver may not notice or compensate for other driver's unsafe behaviours on the road increasing the risk of a crash. Indeed previous research and statistics from around the world have shown that drivers who use mobile phones while driving have impaired driving performance, an increased risk of a crash, and an increased risk of a fatal crash. While mobile phones have been implicated in the causes of a few fatal crashes in the United States, their impact on road safety is unlikely ever to be as great as the impact of speed, alcohol, fatigue and seat-belt use. So in considering future activities on the issue of mobile phones and driving, it is important to remember the cost effectiveness to road safety in general, of such activities.

Having said this, it is still worthwhile to conduct some research activities so that we can understand the likely impact on mobile communications on the road. Although this is not a major safety issue now, it may well be that in 10 years it will be. We currently do not know very much about the public's exposure to this problem, or how quickly their exposure is likely to increase. The best starting point for investigations is to examine how many vehicles on Western Australian roads have mobile communication devices in them and how are they used and how often. This type of data collection can be achieved via phone surveys and additional questions that could be asked at the time of licencing, registration, or subsequent to a crash.

More advanced types of data collection could involve observing driver behaviour on the road and examining crash reports and interview information after crashes have occurred. These types of investigations are inherently difficult, however, due to the difficulty in obtaining accurate information or records to do with mobile phone use. Addition research, conducted on the road or in simulators, is also possible that will show what specifically happens to a driver's abilities when he or she is using a mobile phone on the road.

Whatever the outcome of the research and data collection activities it is obvious that the highest priority should be given to educating the public about the possible risks associated with using a mobile phone while driving, both hand-held and hands-free models. Such education should focus on the fact that mobile phones are just one of many in-car distractions that should be avoided to reduce the risk of having a crash. The public needs to be informed about the possible problems that can occur when using a mobile phone on the road and the best ways to use their phone to reduce the risk of a crash.

The full report is available from Laurence Hartley at Murdoch University